Bookshelf
by Bainaku
Summary: The middle of March, a perverted pop idol, a meddling miko, a princess with a headcold, a sage-mountain mooncat, and a mirrorbound mermaid all send Mizuno Ami scurrying in the right direction.  COMPLETE!
1. Shiver

**Warning: **Implications. Enough said.

**Commentary: **This is me trying to write what Ami deserves. Expect three smallish chapters and an epilogue altogether. =) I started this back in September with the intent that it would be short, sweet, and funny—but after dropping it and letting it sit a while, I revisited the idea. It's become something far longer, far more sincere.

As always, I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

* * *

**BOOKSHELF**

**Chapter ONE: SHIVER—In which Ami looks in all the wrong places **

Outside, it snowed.

The world was all white crystal and whippoorwill wind, the window that led to it glazed in a skim-sheen of spiderwebbing frost. Hunched at her desk with her glasses only just balanced on the brim of her nose, Mizuno Ami traced her fingers over the chilled pane, her chin tucked into her free hand. A sprawled-open standard dictionary supported the knob of her elbow. Her gaze, cerulean circlets fathoms deep, fell sightless on the scene outdoors.

She sat thus for the better part of fifteen minutes, unsurprisingly lost in thought. Only the jarring sound of the heater coming on in the crook of the hallway brought her back to the fringe of awareness.

_Whmmmm_, said heater opined. Tongues of warmth snaked under Ami's desk, stirred pins and needles into her cold-numbed feet. She rubbed them together and dropped her eyes to her desk.

To the dictionary.

Such a comforting thing, a dictionary. A roadmap of word meanings: a tome of answers, of could-bes and usuallys and definitely-sos. A rhapsody written in rationale. A fail-safe consultant in times of uncertainty, doubt, and skepticism. A logical lexicon of here-it-is, one-two-three.

Until now.

Ami shifted her elbow to stare again at the word she had taken the trouble to find in the sheaf of the book's thin, flip-worn pages.

_Love_, it read. _Noun. A profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person._

Ami was not one to curse, to tear at her hair, to throw books across rooms. Still, she weighed the potential satisfaction of each action, dismissed them all, and closed her eyes instead. She sighed. She determined, a puff of frustration unveiled in a single murmured word: "Vague."

And it was. The definition _was _vague. She tried breaking it down piece by piece, but how profound was profound, exactly? Was it my-heart-flutters-at-an-accidental-touch profound? Was it I-dream-dreams-of-us-together profound? Was it I-compare-the-shades-of-their-hair-to-coffee-shadows profound?

Ami reconsidered throwing the book. Briefly, of course.

Tender she understood. Tender was tender, the end. Okay, no problem. But passionate? Ami was passionate about her studies. Passionate about her dream to become a doctor. Passionate about the 100-meter butterfly: the pulse of poolwater, the slosh of pseudo-currents through her fingers. Passionate about flipping her pillow to the cold side just before the shade of sleep fell over her in the night. Passionate about always, always, _always _having a packet of Kleenex on her person and a pouch of chocolate hidden in the back of her sock drawer. The darn things—both of them—came in handy.

She was not passionate about affection—or she didn't think so, anyway. She was… she was _capable _of it, and possessed it: for her parents, yes. For her friends, absolutely. She hooked arms with them, laughed with them, fought for them, breathed blood and battle and brine for them. Her care was subtle, though, misted and minor in terms of tone, a lone bassist's contribution to the concert of an otherwise brass band. It came in packages of homework help, heartfelt sincerity—it softened reminders of looming exams, made bearable desert-stretch study sessions.

Could her attitude really be called passionate?

Ami had an idea looking up _passionate _and _affection _in the dictionary wouldn't answer that question. Her ideas were usually good ones.

Lifting her arm from the spine of the small book, Ami nudged it closed and said aloud, carefully, "A profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person." She hesitated. She tried out, "Love."

In the private chambers of her own mind, she asked herself: _Am I in love?_

Snow stuck in stockpiled regimental lines along the windowpane. The heater in the hall stuttered. Ami looked sideways at the mirror on her vanity and saw that her face was a tomato bisque-y shade of maroon.

She answered her question mentally with a scarce-whisper: _I could be_.

"I," she realized aloud, "need advice."

Given the nature of her problem, Ami went to Minako first.

She was received warmly, ushered inside in the lee of the storm. They discussed the matter over tea in Minako's room. Winter's slow afternoon light fell in through the blinds, made snow-shade blades of brilliance over their laps. The blonde sat across from her nervous friend and listened to Ami's every stammer and stutter intently. She even passed Ami an encouraging cookie when the shy young woman choked and found herself temporarily bereft of speech.

After nibbling the buttery biscuit, Ami collected solace from its saccharides and finished, a hinge-squeak hiss, "Th-that's how it is."

"I see," Minako observed, sage.

Quiet persisted a moment. Ami took another bite of the cookie. She chewed it, swallowed. Minako twirled a trailing end of her hair ribbon. On the bed, Artemis scratched himself, groaned a low dreaming-kitty groan, and rolled over. His whiskers twitched.

"Well?" Ami pressed at last.

"It's simple," Minako said. She rose with a flourish, flounced to her bureau, and jerked open its topmost drawer. She rifled through it. Her eyes blazed in premature victory; her mouth made a triumphant, dazzling curve. Misgivings grumbled low in Ami's belly, but she steeled herself and bit the bullet. Surely, she reasoned, Minako would know best how to help her.

The self-proclaimed Goddess of Love tossed a pair of scarlet satin panties onto the table between them. They were missing what most human beings might have termed vital portions.

"Something like that should do the trick," Minako professed.

Ami fled.

She tried Rei next.

"You want to _what_?" the miko asked incredulously after Ami's spluttered explanation of her dilemma.

"Well, it's—I mean. You know," Ami attempted.

"Actually," Rei denied, wide-eyed, "I had no idea. …okay, I wondered. I really did. But I didn't think you honestly liked…"

Ami clenched her hands over her knees. The fabric of her slacks wrinkled. Sweat stood out on her pale brow. "I—"

Rei held up a hand. Ami blinked at it: studied intently the fire-fanned skin and the burnblains embedded in the flesh of the miko's palm. "Wait," Rei insisted. "Wait just a second. When did you reali—no." She paused. She watched Ami through her lashes, chewed her lip. Her hand fell again. She curled it over a knee and ventured, "I don't need to ask that, do I? When it all started, I mean."

"It's not important," Ami agreed. Relief made her joints watery.

Rei nodded. Her violet-dark eyes nevertheless kindled, ablaze in a curious kind of hunger. "Of course," she said, and she actually meant _tell me everything_.

Ami's cheeks nudged toward nuclear. "Rei-chan," she protested.

The miko giggled, anxious, and waved her hands. "Sorry, sorry!" She rocked sideways a little, nudging one leg out to flex her toes in their closeted _tabi_. "It's just—I mean, it's startling. You do know that, right?"

Miserable, Ami nodded. "Is it…" she began, and faltered. She licked her lips. She went on, "Is it a terrible thing?" And then, hoarse, "Do—do you care?"

The concern in the bookworm's voice could crack concrete. Rei heard it, bristled: she reached between them and took the petite soldier's hands, weaving their fingers together. Broom handle calluses rasped pen divots. Rei smiled. Clicking their thumbnails over one another, the dark-haired girl muttered, "You're a genius, Ami-chan. You _have _to know that's a stupid question."

Shy guilt squirming in pink-blossom vines over her cheeks, Ami lowered her eyes and objected, "You just said it's startling."

"You showing an interest in a person and not a display of the new semester's textbooks? Well, yeah! It _is _startling!" Rei jiggled their joined hands emphatically. "But so is Usagi passing a math test, and she's been doing that more and more recently—give it a while and we'll barely notice the difference. Right?"

"Right," Ami confirmed. Considered. Insisted softly, a smile hitching the corner of her mouth upright, "…it might be a long while."

Rei beamed. She gave the other soldier's hands a final squeeze before releasing them, dropping her fingers to her hakama to worry the tips over wrinkled seams. "Really, Ami-chan," she asserted, "I don't care. And I don't think anyone else will either. Startling things are often _good _things."

"You think this is good?" asked Ami gingerly—hopefully.

"I think," Rei said stoutly, "it's excellent. I'm so glad you're comfortable enough to come talk to us about thi—"

"That's not—!" Ami interrupted. Rei stopped, surprised. The shorter girl gagged on her words, mangled them in her mouth, spat out finally, "…that's not quite what I meant."

"Mm?" nudged the miko.

Chewing her lower lip, Ami surveyed her friend of over a thousand years—give or take massive amnesiac gaps and the odd reincarnation or two—through her lashes. She whispered when she felt she could, "Comfort isn't an issue. Any problem I have, Rei-chan, when it's like this… I'm going to tell you about it."

Rei frowned, disbelieving. "You've been pretty quiet about this kind of stuff before," she reminded the other girl. "Germany. Mm?" She thought about it. She pressed, "When you were stressed out tutoring us. When you felt weak. And that one time at the carnival, Ami-chan—you let Usagi stuff you full of that saltwater taffy even though you _hated _it and you never said anything until you threw up by the fence. Don't you remember? We had to nearly carry you home—"

"Things are different now," Ami conferred. Her voice was a quiet, thready frost beneath the crackling hiss of the fire nearby. "You don't have to worry about that anymore."

"Why?" Rei demanded.

"We died," Ami said, and Rei shut up. Her jaw snapped closed. She stared at the girl across from her, a blue-browed bespectacled waif in a brown peacoat and snow-flecked boots. Ami's eyes swam in a sea of shimmer-sincerity behind her lenses. Rei drowned, or nearly did. Sensing her struggles, Ami blinked and the waves in her gaze went away again. Rei drew in a sharp, shuddering breath.

"We died," Ami repeated. She rubbed her face with the sleeve of her coat. The wool left stippled imprints on her cheek. "We've done it before, I know. But this time, we… we fell into nothing. We dissolved and there—there wasn't _anything_, and it was cold, colder than D-point, and then it was _over_, and I remember thinking…"

Her mouth twisted. The deep dimple in her left cheek wrinkled and it was her turn to struggle, forehead agleam in the shrine's fortune-flaying firelight. "I remember thinking," she continued, "how terrible it was to die being the person who still, after years of friendship and fighting weird creatures and—and… _all of it_, Rei-chan, after _all of it_… I was dying and I was still the person who was afraid to tell my best friends how I really _feel _all the ti—"

"Ami-chan," Rei cut in, tone all gentle teasing, "your sappiness is leaking all over the floorboards. I _just _swept them a few minutes ago."

Despite her flaming face and the flush crawling up her throat, Ami giggled. Rei added in her own chime. They looked at each other. The miko huffed—the genius nibbled her lip. Their high, heady laughter echoed over the snow-covered shrine, and icicles in the courtyard's weeping cypress tink-tinked their blizzardly approval.

"Really," Ami wheezed after their shared fit, dabbing the corner of an eye with her scarf, "I'm _serious_. Look at my face. Look at it!"

"Your cheeks are chapped," Rei observed.

"Fine, don't look at it." Ami mimed closing a book. "I mean—I'm sick of being that person. So I won't let myself do that again. I won't hide how I feel if it's this important." She hesitated: gestured to herself next, a sweeping motion from head to toe. It was a little defensive. "I'm here, aren't I? Asking for…" She lowered her voice, countenance the color of smashed brick. "…romantic advice? Love, uh. Pointers?"

"You're here," Rei opined, reaching to embrace the smaller woman, "being as brave as anyone I've ever seen."

Ami squeaked into a billowy sleeve—hid her face there. She accused Rei in a smile-shadowed whisper, "Sappiness! You just swept, remember?"

Rei withdrew, beset by more giggles. "Right, right. Well! Okay—you're not just here because you're comfortable talking with me about romance. I get that. What else is there, Ami-chan?"

"I _do _need advice," Ami admitted. "About my… err. My… plan. Is that what it is? Is it a plan?"

"It's totally a plan." Rei sounded sure of this.

Cupping her hands over her cheeks in an effort to cool them, Ami flexed her fingers. "Why does saying it that way make me feel dirty?" she wondered.

"I'm not the brainiac in the room," Rei hedged, "or a Goddess of Love, but I'd say it has something to do with your subconscious desire to, oh, I don't know—implement a pair of fur-lined handcuffs."

"_Rei-chan_."

"…or it could be you being a prude."

Peeking out at the fire soldier through her fingers, Ami pursed her lips and stated, "Really. My plan."

"Mmhm?"

"Is it—good?"

Rei grinned. She held up her hand, ticking off points one by one. "You want to put yourself out there." Her index finger fell. "You want to get noticed." Her thumb folded. "You want to see if there are any… what's the word?" She tapped her chin, thoughtful. Her grin widened into a wicked smirk—she wiggled her pinky, dropped it down with its sister digits. "Ah. Sparks. You want to see if there are any _sparks_—"

Tomato-hued again and tormented to boot, Ami wrapped her scarf tightly about the lower half of her face despite the heat in the room. She agreed, muffled, "Right. Sparks. Fine. Is it a _good _plan, Rei-chan?"

"It's a perfect plan!" the other girl enthused.

"Not quite perfect," argued Ami. "No plan is." The scarf fluttered under the gust of her next question. "How… how do I put myself out there? How do I get noticed? I'm used to resembling the wallpaper."

Rei started to respond—stopped again. She rolled her head on her shoulders, dropped her cheek into a palm. Outside the March wind shuddered and shimmied; the shrine creaked around them, a hundred years and change audible in its wintry woe. Its maiden squinted and put forth at last, "You know…"

Ami leaned forward, eager and hopeful. The scarf drooped. Her sapphire forelocks fell over her brow in a wink of skysong shine. "Yes?"

Rei replied, "Minako has this particular pair of panties…"

An abrupt shuffling of feet—a scuffling of shoes too. A slammed door. A shrine sans genius, suddenly.

Rei sat alone for a moment in front of the scry-fire, staring at the spot formerly occupied by her friend. She waited. She contemplated. She heaved a great sigh, stood, and stepped from the sacred chamber. Her feet carried her outside, down the shrine's wraparound porch, and back into her family's ancestral living quarters. She wiped her feet delicately on the tatami just inside the door, reached for the thick black telephone poised on the nearest shelf. Dialed a familiar number. Put the receiver to her ear, resigned.

"Hello?" a breathless, ribald voice piped up after the third ring. And then, superior, "Is that you, Rei-chan? You owe me—"

"Five thousand yen, Minako-chan," sighed Rei. "I know, I know. Cash or check?"


	2. Shimmy

**Warning: **Implications. Enough said.

**Commentary: **Chapter Two ahoy! Thank you all for the feedback on the first chapter, and I hope you'll provide me the same favor again with this one. As has been pointed out, this work is Inner-centric—not exactly my specialty, ne? Please let me know if I'm doing okay, if I'm mangling them, or if I'm so far off the mark they're unrecognizable.

Please also continue to let me know if I'm turning purple with my prose. ;) Never a good thing, that. Doesn't please the ladies. Should be avoided at all costs.

As always, I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

* * *

**BOOKSHELF**

**Chapter TWO: SHIMMY—In which Ami consults a queen (almost) and a cat (not quite) **

Following her retreat from Hikawa, Ami took some time on a park bench to recuperate. The month's mean breezes crept through her slacks and chilled her legs. She pressed her knees together—her stomach fluttered, and in her mouth a queer metal taste coppered up and collected. She closed her eyes. Small snowflakes found her lashes, lighted on them, melted. They made her look like she was crying. Inside, she was.

_Love. Noun. A profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person._

She sucked in an icy breath, whimpered: her nostrils burned and her lungs screamed. The brittle air bit into her chest like knives. Still, she held it fast until she felt the world cant toward sanity again, and she allowed herself a single shivery, gasping giggle—there was no one else in the park to hear it. She hissed to herself, half laugh, half lament, "What are they thinking? I look terrible in red."

She took a few more minutes to muse about nothing in particular—which, given her mind's maelstrom capabilities and the situation at hand, was hard to do. Eventually she collected her coat around herself. She rose: her legs cracked, her zipper tinkled. The breeze blew fresh snow straight into her eyes.

Her feet took her down ice-slick sidewalks to Usagi's house.

She knocked on the door with numb knuckles—drew them to her mouth next, bit them through her gloves. From within the house came small shifting noises, slow footsteps on the stairs. Luna's voice rang out too, clear evidence that Usagi's parents were away: "She's coming, Ami-chan!"

The chain skittered. The door opened. Usagi looked out into March's fading noontime, all red cheeks and sallow skin and straggling hair, the last let down in a tangled cascade from its usual buns. She smiled even so, and the dark circles beneath her eyes crinkled like velvet wells. "Ami-chan," she croaked.

"Usagi-chan," Ami said in horror, "you're _sick_."

"Went skating with Mamo-chan," the blonde muttered matter-of-factly. She swayed: Ami reached out to brace her, nudged her back into the house. She toed off her shoes and pulled the door closed behind her. Usagi went on dizzily, "He had the sniffles. He told me not to kiss him." She narrowed her gaze and informed Ami, a sure victor, "I didn't listen."

"You should have," Ami opined, and Usagi gave her both a nod and a fairly cross-eyed look.

"Ami-chan," she noted, "I think I have a fever or something. I see…" She trailed off, blinked blankly, dropped her head onto Ami's shoulder. It was warm enough that the blue-haired soldier felt the temperature change through the padding of her jacket. "I see four of you," Usagi summated, tone accomplished. She scowled. She realized, "That's bad."

"Very bad," Ami agreed. She looked around Usagi at the black cat perched on the lowermost step of the stairs. "Luna! Why didn't you call me?"

"She was just thrashing around in her sleep and moaning about purple turtles until you knocked," Luna defended. She leapt from the stairs and twined in anxious apology about the ankles of both girls, the spark of her brow crescent like sunlight on a coin. "Trust me, that's not far from the norm—"

"Fuchsia turtles," Usagi corrected her cat sternly. "With paper crowns."

"…the paper crowns are new," Luna admitted after a moment of startled quiet. "I'll go get some tea out of the cabinets. Will you help her back to bed, Ami-chan? There's a hotplate and a kettle upstairs. Her cup is on the bookshelf."

"Of course. Usagi-chan, arm around my neck, all right?" Ami prodded her friend gently.

"Crowns," Usagi reaffirmed. She draped a heavy limb companionably over Ami's shoulders and together they staggered back up the stairs. Ami saw her princess delivered into the clasp of clean sheets and a cool compress. She smoothed Usagi's sweat-slick bangs from her brow until Luna appeared at the bottom of the door with a teabag in her mouth.

Ami took it. She smiled. "Thank you, Luna."

"It's the strong stuff. Her father takes it for his insomnia. And I'm sorry I didn't notice sooner," Luna fretted. "I didn't get in until late last night and she was already in bed, and I thought we were both just sleeping in—"

"Luna had a hot daaaaate," Usagi managed in a froggy singsong. Slanting a blue eye beneath the compress, she stage-whispered to Ami, "Artemis left her a dead bird on the windowsill. I think he's going to propose any day now."

Luna flushed. Giggling quietly, Ami set about making a cup of tea for her headcold-suffering future monarch and soothed the royal advisor, "Did you have a good time, Luna?"

The feline brightened. After giving a few cleansing swipes to a haunch, she supplied, "A wonderful time. We snuck in to see a film!"

"Oh?" Ami tugged the teabag's string. "Which one?"

"Yeah," Usagi urged. "Which one, Luna?"

Flicking her tail into an exclamation point, the cat baited her charge, "You know… I'm not sure I even remember. I was so focused on _other _things..."

Usagi sat up. The cold compress tumbled into her lap. "Can cats make out?" she demanded excitedly.

"Usagi-chan," Ami scolded the princess, thrusting the fresh cup into the blonde girl's hands, "drink this and save the gossip for when you'll actually remember it."

Usagi examined the contents of the cup. She sniffed it—took a suspicious sip. "This tastes terrible," she accused the observant pair.

Fumbling two aspirin from her jacket's inner pocket, Ami apologized, "These will taste worse, but they'll make you feel better. So will the tea. Here." She passed over the small white pills. "Try not to chew, okay?"

"You're gonna be a great doctor," Usagi insisted admirably. "You're already a walking pharmacy."

"I," Ami chuckled, "stay prepared against the season, that's all. Pills, Usagi."

Disgruntled, the princess finished the tea and swigged the pills down too. Ami helped her recline again and reaffixed the compress over Usagi's golden brows. Once tucked in, Usagi wriggled a little and murmured, "Ami-chan?"

"Mm?"

"Can turtles be fuchsia?"

"Yes," Ami lied. She tweaked Usagi's earlobe. "Go to sleep, Usagi-chan."

"Nnngh." Usagi closed her eyes. "Will you stay?"

"For a while," Ami promised. She shifted forward onto her knees and drew Usagi's curtains closed. The shadows in the room darkened, delved down, raced over the trio. Two members of it sat quietly, one twitching her whiskers, the other idly folding a napkin she found on the tea table. They waited for the third piece of their party to drift into slumber.

Before she made it there entirely, Usagi pried open a drowsy eye and rolled it until she spotted her soldier's signature blue mop. "Ami-chan?" she asked again.

"Mm?" Ami looked up from the napkin.

"Why'd you come over? Normally"—Usagi yawned, her cheeks rosy lamps in the faltery half-light of the bedroom—"you call first. I didn't hear the phone ring. Everything… everything okay?"

Ami smiled and shook her head. "Everything's fine. I was going to ask for a little advice, but it can wait. Ne, Usagi-chan—go to _sleep_. The sooner you do, the sooner you can go skating with Mamoru-san again."

"He caught me every time I fell," Usagi said smugly. She closed her eye, settled back into her sheets. She told Ami in a conspirator's tone, "Sometimes I did it on purpose."

"I'm sure he didn't mind," Ami put in.

Usagi smiled. The sure corners of it chased away the shadows in the room a bit. "No," she sighed. "He didn't, probably."

Her breathing slowed, deepened. Ami turned her attention back to the napkin, folding it thoughtfully under cautious fingers. She was nearly finished when Usagi's voice stirred the quiet a final time.

"Ami-chan?"

Ami looked over at her princess, unable to help answering the raspy query. "Usagi-chan?"

"I'm not very good at giving advice, because I don't know much about a lot of things," the blonde began in sleep-smudged earnest. She yawned again: she smelled of heat and tea and encroaching dreamtime. She attempted, "So you should… you should do what _you _think is best. You're never wrong." Usagi's hand quested from beneath the sheets and found Ami's wrist. It folded there, firm if not beset by a feverish tremble. "I _do_ know that for sure."

Ami put the napkin, shaped now like a crown, aside on the nearby manga-laden bookshelf. She curled her fingers over Usagi's. She marveled at how small and soft they felt. Such things had cupped, cradled, crafted the fate of the world several times now—would do it again.

Usagi's thumbnails were ragged from perchance, persistent nibbling. Ami smoothed them anyway.

"What if I don't know much about this particular thing either?" Ami ventured.

Usagi's lips twitched into a sleepy smile. "Easy," she whispered. Her hand tightened—her splayed hot palm was like a star on skin. "Trust that you'll figure it out. I always do. Trust you, I mean. Because you're Ami-chan, and that's… that's what you… d..."

The eventual queen's mouth parted. Her chest hitched. She drooled a little. Luna discreetly pawed over another napkin and Ami wiped the evidence away. She slid her friend's hand back beneath the blanket.

"She's going to be all right," Ami told Luna. She made to stand. "She'll sleep straight through dinner, but when she does wake up, try to make her eat something light. No caffeine. Vitamin C would be a good thing. Maybe some soup—"

"Are _you _going to be all right, Ami-chan?" Luna asked. She switched her tail in a low loop about the empty teacup, her eyes brightmoon beam-green in the bedroom's darkness. "You can talk to me too, you know. It's my job to offer guidance to wayward princesses. While you're neither wayward nor my princess, I'm still here and happy to listen."

She extended an ebony forepaw. Tiny cat toes whisked over Ami's knee, and the soldier smiled as she wrapped her scarf about her neck and pulled its end to tighten it. "I know you are," she murmured. She studied the Mau advisor. Shrugging into her jacket, she put forward, "Luna?"

The cat cocked her head attentively.

"There's someone I spend a lot of time with," Ami said. She felt a rush of words ribbon up into her throat—she fought with them. She bit her lips. They came anyway. "I—I find myself thinking about that person a lot. I miss them when they're not with me. Sometimes…" Her voice guttered. "…sometimes when I'm reading, I imagine them walking up behind me, and their shadow falls over the words on my book's pages such that I can't read them anymore and… and Luna, _I_ _don't mind it_. I don't mind that thought at _all_."

She stopped. Luna waited. When the soldier made a sound of misery into her jacket collar, the cat provided, "It sounds like love, Ami-chan." Her remark wasn't without wonder.

"But it isn't," Ami denied. "It _can't _be. Not… not yet."

"Why not?" came the curious feline prompt.

"Because—" This was louder than intended, and Ami softened her explanation as Usagi shivered and shifted. "Because I don't know if that person feels even remotely the same way. If s—uhm. If they think similar thoughts, ever."

She knelt next to the bookshelf and the low tea table, reaching out to scratch Luna's ears for comfort. Her jacket bunched at the clasps. The cat purred. "I can't be in love with them if—if I don't know," Ami maintained. "If it's one-sided. It wouldn't make sense, would it?" She sucked in a breath. "It wouldn't… it wouldn't be fair. And it could hurt so _badly _if—"

"Love is rarely sensible, fair, or painless," Luna declared neatly. She stood and arched her back into Ami's palm, and the water soldier kneaded her slinky spine just where she liked it, an absent chiropractor. "You need only look at Usagi and Mamoru to know that," Luna said. "Or," she added shyly, "Artemis and myself. A dead bird is in no way sensible, is it?"

"Catching it or liking it?" Ami asked before she could stop herself.

"Both," Luna muttered. "And a pigeon at that. Filthy, fat little thing." She finished guiltily, "It was delicious."

They both considered this.

Luna continued, "There's a saying I'm sure you've heard: anything worth having is worth fighting for. Right?"

"Yes." Ami nodded, an apt pupil.

"It's true. Love can't be explained by or put into the theorems you're so deft at weaving, Ami-chan." Luna's thin shoulders rubbed Ami's lifeline, all soothing solace. "And love… it's not an even exchange. It never is. Sometimes one person gives too much. Sometimes the other gives too little."

She stopped to nibble at the furred webbing between her toes. She shot Ami a look of apology, but the water soldier took it as a cultural difference, folded her hands in her pockets, and waited patiently.

"Sometimes, Ami-chan," Luna went on when she was finished, "love hurts quite a bit too. It can be an agony just trying to turn days into nights attached to another soul." She provided her audience a reassuring feline grin, half-Chesire: her warm pink nose butted Ami's fingers. "But if it's really love, you know, it doesn't matter—_none _of those things matter. Because neither person truly cares about anything but the other, and it _is—_they are—worth fighting for. In the end."

"Oh," Ami said. The word came out small. She opened her arms. Luna slipped into them. Snitching away her friend's confidant for a brief moment, Ami pressed her face into the Mau advisor's fur and hid from the world in its sleek, shining whorls.

"Is it okay to try to gauge the other person's interest before starting to fight for them, Luna?" hazarded the petite soldier at last. "Love might not be sensible, but _I _am, and I—I feel like I should. A little. Try to gauge interest, I mean."

"I don't see any harm in that," Luna admitted. "How did you intend to go about such gauging?"

"I have no idea. I was hoping," Ami sighed, "Usagi-chan might have a better suggestion than skimpy lingerie."

Luna's tone went deadpan. "Minako?"

"And Rei-chan," Ami affirmed. She released the cat in favor of shoving her face into her palms. "They were joking, I know—well. I _hope_. But this is _serious_."

"And here I was going to suggest a pigeon," Luna teased. "They come in a variety of colors, you know. Placed on a doorstep or windowsill in the traditional fashion, they have quite the charming effect on w—"

"Thank you for the advice, Luna," Ami whisper-laughed, "but I don't have the faintest hope of catching a pigeon." She stood again, tugging down the folds of her jacket. "I'll go now. Would you like me to open a can of tuna for you on the way out?"

"Usagi's mother doesn't have any of that, but maybe the tin of water chestnuts?" Luna pleaded. "They have a lovely crunch. And I don't think anyone will miss them."

They went downstairs together. Under the resident cat's direction, Ami rifled through the Tsukino pantry, came up with the desired tin of water chestnuts, and emptied it into Luna's waiting bowl. After rinsing out the tin, she thought too to shove it to the bottom of the kitchen's recycling bin.

Poised over the treat, Luna wrinkled her whiskery cheeks and said, "Usagi's right, Ami-chan. And so were Minako-chan and Rei-chan."

"About the crotchless panties?" the soldier stammered, incredulous.

Luna blanched. "That's—that's not… no. About you figuring things out. You always do—you will this time. On your own terms. Not theirs. I think that's what they were trying to tell you." She flicked an ear. "Misguided as their attempts might have been."

"They'll have to forgive me for not being fluent in fashion and lace," Ami grumbled.

"Give it time," Luna offered serenely, and she smiled into her chestnuts as Ami spluttered behind her scarf and made to leave the house by way of the front walk.

The doorknob in one hand, Ami leaned back around the jamb and inquired, "Luna?"

A chestnut shred in her teeth, the feline looked up again. Her ears circled to bear on the soldier. "Aa?"

"C… _can _cats make out?" Ami asked.

Luna's telling fluster was answer enough.


	3. Shudder

**Warning: **Implications. Enough said.

**Commentary: **Chapter Three, huzzah! Again, thank you all for your comments and criticisms so far—please continue to offer them! I improve by your suggestions; I note potential flaws by your observations of my writing habits. Please don't be afraid to tell me if you think something is wrong, or needs to be fixed, or is too widely used for comfort. I might not always agree with you (I personally think Artemis could and would catch a pigeon—those birds are dumb as a box of hair, and he _is _a cat), but I will always listen, and I will also always appreciate the time you took to say something. =)

I'll also always appreciate you showing up clad in nothing but tassels and whipped toppi—oh, wait. My bad. Wrong forum!

Props to everyone who guessed Ami's love interest before this chapter. Really, though: who else? ;)

As always, I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it.

* * *

**BOOKSHELF**

**Chapter THREE: SHUDDER—In which Ami gives it her best shot **

The afternoon bloodied its knuckles on the white horizon. The storm tapered. Hands thrust into pockets, head tucked down beneath the wind's chilled bower, Ami wandered across the frozen district and considered the day's collection of advice.

Perverted panties. Purple ("Fuchsia!" Usagi hissed between her temples) turtles. Paper crowns. Prices to pay.

Places to visit.

"Worth fighting for, huh?" Ami murmured. "She'd probably like that…"

She looked up and was only marginally surprised to find herself at Kino Makoto's door.

She stood on the mat, snow melting off her ankle-cut boots, and closed her eyes.

_She is in a library. It doesn't matter why, because she is _always _in a library—they are as much a part of her as her soldier's heritage, as her azure pixie cut. As people tend to do in libraries, she is reading a book. It doesn't matter which one either, because she always has a book—they too are as much a part of her as her hands, as the silver star-speckle freckles on her sternum. It is January. Outside, a pale powder-snow coats the city like sugar._

_She is engrossed, wedged deep into whatever material she has cupped between her palms. Her legs tucked beneath her, the pressure of a pencil ever-present behind an ear, she mulls over her selected author's potential points. She nibbles at her lips. The prose is absolutely fascinating—_

_The words on the page dim. Ami frowns. She reaches up to her temple, tweaks her glasses there: but to no avail. Something is blocking her light. "Excuse me," she murmurs. She manages to squirm partway around in her chair when a hand falls to her shoulder. The hand is broad, warm: the lotus-splay of its fingers feather from her throat to the fringe of her arm._

"_Whatcha reading?" Makoto asks. She leans over the back of Ami's chair. Her strong jaw looms into view—her rose earring winks, a low pink-silver firework. A chestnut tress escapes from her ponytail, drifts down to dredge its soft floss across Ami's cheek. _

_A flush rises in its wake. Ami swallows. Her throat sticks. Her heartbeat catapults up into a taiko pace. Glad heat crawls in her belly, pleasurable pins and needles._

_Makoto smells like cookies._

"_Just a summation of articles that chronicle the changes in a procedural policy—" Ami starts. Makoto grins. Ami stops again, just like that. It's not that Makoto doesn't care, or that she wouldn't understand if she tried hard enough: it's simply that it doesn't matter, this book between them—not to either of them. _

_Makoto's eyes have small scissory lines at their corners. They crinkle now, those lines. Reaching around, the tall girl plucks the book from Ami's hands and tosses it onto the nearby table._

"_Enough of that for one day, Mizuno-sensei," she instructs Ami sternly. She pitches her voice deep. It reverberates in the stacks, commanding, officious. "It's time for you to have some fun."_

"_I _was _having fun, Mako-chan," Ami protests, except she really doesn't protest at all. She sits up in the chair a little. Makoto picks up her jacket for her, fluffs the sleeves, holds it open._

"_Real fun," insists the lightning soldier. "_Outside _fun." She snaps the jacket, authoritative. "Up you get. Hurry now!"_

_Ami obligingly rises and lets her friend help her into the coat. Makoto steps around to her front to snap together Ami's uppermost buttons, collar to ribs, and Ami herself takes the bottom three. "What did you have in mind, Mako-chan?" she asks when they are finished and Ami is suitably bundled._

"_There's a street festival about three blocks over," Makoto relates. Before Ami can fish for it, she bends and takes up the shorter soldier's bag. It's full of books like the library around them, and it's heavy enough that Ami's elbows ache from carrying it. Makoto drapes it effortlessly over a shoulder. The tomes inside rustle quietly._

"_I have some sweets at a stall there," she tells Ami, and she winks. "Raspberry treacle. Apple cinnamon streusel, caramel-mixed-chocolate drizzle on special." She wheedles, "And there's ciiiiideeeer…"_

"_I should really finish that book," Ami reminds her friend. She looks pointedly over at the volume on the table. She doesn't mean it in the least, this silly claim, but this is a ritual and Makoto falls into it with as much ease as she hefted Ami's bag. Over the past few months, the tall girl has taken to visiting Ami in her libraries: has pulled her from them too, almost every time. Ami doesn't quite know the reason for Makoto's newfound hobby, but she enjoyed it from the start—expects it now. Looks forward to it._

_In fact, she's started coming to the library for the ritual alone. She can get books other places._

"_That book will be here when you come back tomorrow," her visitor maintains. "I promise. _Really. _No one else wants it." Makoto's viridian eyes follow Ami's gaze to the book, a quick glance. She scowls at it. That scowl melts to a pout, and she pins it on the genius at her front. "But _I _want _your _company and I want it now. And like I said," she puts in, "there's cider."_

_Ami pretends to think about it, and Makoto pretends to pout harder. She dances lightly from foot to foot. _

"_Well," Ami gives in at last, "what kind of cider?"_

_Makoto beams. She seizes Ami's hand and laughs quietly, mindful of their surroundings, "Spiced pear. C'mon, Mizuno-sensei—let's beat it and have some."_

_They go, leaving the library behind. As the bookshelves blur alongside them and Makoto's fingers flex in hers, Ami looks down between them and realizes—_

"Love."

She whispered it. She opened her eyes. She rested a hand on Makoto's door, rubbed her palm over its identifying numbers. Only this barricade separated her from the friend she had come to care for, in her heart of hearts, as more than a friend.

Ami took a deep breath. She lifted her hand away, balled it into a fist, and prepared to knock.

Her arm was halfway back to the door when the knob jiggled and spun.

For a stunned half-second, she stared at it in stupefied shock. Years of fighting youma and her own nerves, however, had her around the corner of Makoto's building and pressed to the wall by the next heartbeat. Her stomach squelching somewhere around her toes and her chest all tight tension-wire, Ami held her breath and listened to Makoto check her mail.

The metal box beside the door clanked. Makoto rifled through it, a hum in her throat: even at a distance Ami could smell the floury sugar-scent of the tall girl's apartment and, doubtless, her sleeves too. House slippers scuffed concrete. Makoto flipped through her findings. She huffed.

"Damn, the electric bill's due tomorrow," she muttered. There came the sound of paper shredding and Ami imagined a fingernail slipping beneath an envelope's uppermost fold, peeling it away next. Makoto chuckled, small self-rebuke. "Of all the things to forget…"

She paused. Ami lifted her hands to her mouth, folded them there to muffle the sound of her own breathing, and wondered frantically: _Why am I hiding? I came to talk—why don't I just step around and say hello? What if she catches me over here? Why am I doing this? Why can't I—_

"Hm," Makoto said.

Ami froze. Given the elemental spectrum over which she claimed dominion, she was very good at it.

Seconds, shards of eternity, slipped past. Makoto's slippers scuffed on the concrete again. Paper crackled: Ami knew the other soldier was shuffling her bills like a deck of playing cards. The door squeaked. Closed. Straining her ears, Ami caught the sound of her friend's fading footsteps back within the walls of her apartment.

She dropped her hands and exhaled in an ashamed, exasperated cloud. She tried to curse: couldn't manage it. She didn't have it in her. She settled instead for, "You _idiot_." For Ami, it was the mother of all personal insults.

Looking back around the corner of the building, she studied Makoto's door. The _whsk-ssssh _of cars on the slushy street nearby lulled low; headlight-shine danced on the rim of her glasses. The thought of the five steps back to that door, of raising her hand to try knocking again, made her insides writhe.

"_Trust that you'll figure it out," _Usagi's voice reminded her, a resilient thought-echo.

Ami shook her head. Beaten, she turned and followed the shoveled walk back into the district proper.

Because she didn't want to go home and because, she reasoned, she felt like she deserved salt-rubbed wounds, she journeyed the six or so blocks to the nearest library. Her face was a numb sheet upon arrival, her hands stiff in their gloves, and she jittered into the elevator with a sniffle and an absent wish for hot chocolate. She took the lift to the third floor.

The journey down the silent stacks to a familiar reading spot brought her little joy. Draping her cold-weather wardrobe on the radiator next to her selected chair to dry, she ferreted the newest edition of her favorite medical journal from the magazine rack. She opened it, picking a page at random.

An article on the latest advances in cardiology glared glossily back up at her.

_Love. Noun. A profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person._

Rubbing the edge of her palm over an enhanced diagram of a heart's left ventricle, Ami wondered how she could know so much about something and still fall fields short of understanding it.

A shadow slithered over the page. Ami blinked, lifted her fingers to adjust her glasses—murmured the usual, "Excuse me, please."

A hand found her shoulder. The soldier gasped, whirled around in the chair. She dropped the medical journal thoughtlessly into her lap. She lifted her eyes and hoped—

Kaioh Michiru pulled back in surprise, gifting Ami with a smile both startled and sly. "You," she observed, marine eyes all mischievous kindness, "were expecting someone else."

"Michiru-san," Ami realized. She tried not to sound too disappointed. By the arch of Michiru's calligraphy-swoop eyebrow, she failed miserably.

"The one and only," Michiru agreed. She stepped around the chair, plucked Ami's medical volume delicately aright, and eyed its contents. Flipping it closed again, she settled it aside. "Not _your _one and only, though," she decided. "Mm?"

She took a seat in the chair across from Ami, expectant.

"I—" Ami started. She gaped at the other woman. Realizing a few seconds later that such strangled silence was telling enough, she closed her mouth again. Michiru, lips curved in a patient smile, flicked her eyes elsewhere and made a take-your-time motion with her fingertips. She looked almost like she was stirring a latte.

Red-faced, Ami fought: with herself. With an explanation. With shame.

Michiru said eventually, "If you don't want to talk about it—"

Clapping both hands together over her blue crown, Ami bent her head and interjected, "Michiru-san, help me. _Please_."

"Well!" Michiru laughed, startled. She twitched her sweater away from her hip, folded her legs, and settled back to presumably get comfortable. "It's Mako-chan, isn't it?"

Ami dropped the loop of her arms. She asked weakly, "Is it that obvious?"

Michiru held her thumb and forefinger a smidgen apart in answer.

Ami permitted herself the tiniest groan. She buried her face in her hands. Through the net of her fingers she managed, "I don't know what to _do_."

"How do you mean?" Michiru queried.

Chewing the inside of her cheek, Ami debated how to best phrase her anxieties. She started with, "I'm too afraid to talk to her." That issue thus voiced, she looked at her fellow water-wielding soldier, gave a faint if not full-bodied tremble, and spilled, "And I don't know what I'd say or how I'd so much as _begin_ to go about saying it, and the worst part is I'm not even sure if she's _interested_—"

She bit off the rest. She ground her face into her lifeline, shoving her glasses up onto her forehead. Blue tufts bristled over the nosepiece and the left lens.

"How," she finished miserably, "did you know Haruka-san was i… interested in you?"

"Interested in me like you're interested in Mako-chan?" Michiru pursued.

Ami hesitated. Thought about it. Nodded.

Michiru smiled. "Hm," she allowed, "well… there were lots of little things that made me suspicious. She gave me her blazer once, when it was cold—she fussed with her hair before she was supposed to meet me. When our fingers brushed accidentally, her face…"

She trailed off, pink-cheeked, and it was Ami's turn to look away.

Michiru continued firmly after a pause, "The dent in the car."

Ami glanced back at her friend. "What?"

"The dent in the car," Michiru repeated. "She picked me up after a concert about a month after we started fighting together. I tripped. I fell against her car. My knee hit it hard enough to make a dent." Ami winced, and Michiru nodded emphatically. "I didn't," she grouched, "get rid of that bruise for three weeks."

Another library patron passed by the pair. They waited for him to vanish into the elevator. Ami nudged when she was sure he was gone, voice suffused with curiosity, "And?"

"And she made sure I was all right first," Michiru finished. "She didn't so much as look at the car. That's how I knew. _When_ I knew."

They fell quiet together: Ami to think as she was wont to do, and Michiru to peer through the window at the light snowfall outdoors. The latter said at last, "Ami-chan?"

"Yes?" Ami snapped back to attention, straightened.

"You're thinking about this way too much. But," she insisted, "if you want to know whether she's interested, the next time you see Mako-chan…" Michiru leaned forward: cupped Ami's face, drew her glasses away. She studied the smaller girl. She suggested, gentle, as she folded those glasses and tucked them into Ami's jacket pocket, "Let her see this. Let her see _you_."

Ami went the color of freshly-cut roses and stammered her understanding.

Michiru stood. "Haruka's waiting in the parking lot," she said. "Do you need a ride anywhere?"

"N-no, I'm fi—_oh_, Michiru-san, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to hold up either of you—"

The other soldier sliced a hand through the air between them, effectively ending the protest. "No need to apologize. I saw you getting into the elevator on my way out and you looked like you needed a sympathetic ear. I dropped off my books with Haruka at the car and came back inside." She sniffed. "I would have been here sooner, even, but there was a patch of ice in the parking lot. We," said the violinist gravely, "became friends."

Ami giggled, unable to help it. "Are you all right?" she asked.

"Yes, but I think Haruka might have died laughing. If she's slumped over the wheel when I get down there, I at least know the cause." Michiru sighed. She persisted, "Are you sure we can't give you a ride?"

Ami declined, "I appreciate it, but I think I… I just…" She stopped. She smiled. She said softly, "Thank you, Michiru-san."

Michiru smiled back and touched her fingertips briefly to Ami's forearm. She was gone a moment later, the only evidence of her passing a faint echo of clicking boots in the stacks.

Ami rode out the next quarter hour in contemplating quiet. When the receptionist voiced the library's imminent closure over the intercom, the girl fished her glasses from her pocket, slid them into place, and collected her things. She buttoned the jacket. She replaced the medical journal on the shelf—left the building next, stride slow but certain.

She retraced her steps.

At sunset, she knocked on Makoto's door.


	4. Shine

**Warning: **Implications. Enough said.

**Commentary: **Here's the epilogue. =) I hope it surprises you. I hope it delights you. I hope it makes you laugh—or, at the very least, I hope it makes you smile.

As always, I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it.

* * *

**BOOKSHELF**

**EPILOGUE: SHINE—In which everything works out for everyone**

No one answered.

Ami waited a few astonished seconds. Gloved hand trembling, she tried again, the knock this time more of a hammer. She bit her lip.

Still nothing.

"Oh," she said. She eased tentatively forward. She pressed both palms to the door, then her cheek, and finally an ear. The shock of the frigid surface against her flesh sent her breath out in a low whoosh, but she kept close to it regardless. She listened.

Silence.

"She's not here," Ami informed no person in particular. Her voice came out crisper than usual, cracked. A lump rose in her throat. She jerked away from the door, her vision misting miserably over. She blinked rapidly in an attempt to clear it. The damnable fog returned once, twice, thrice.

_Can I do this again? _she wondered. _Am I really brave enough to do this again?_

To stave off the encroaching tears, Ami sucked in a sharp, wobbly breath, squeezed her eyes shut, and reasoned, "She's probably out grocery shopping. Or maybe she's taking that Italian cooking class she was talking about signing up for, yes—that could be it."

The lump in her throat grew and she went on, desperate to find comfort in rationale, "Maybe she went to meet someone!" Her stomach clenched at the thought. She fiddled with her scarf and hazarded, the pylons beneath her resolve crumbling and her nostrils were on fire and oh no don't cry Ami don't cry don't you_ dare_ cry don't no stop it no _please _no don't don't _don't_, "Maybe she—"

"Had to pay an electric bill," finished Makoto from the edge of the stairs.

Ami pulled her scarf so tight that her exhale sputtered into a startled gag. Tugging the inadvertent noose free, she turned.

Stomping her booted feet to rid them of slush, Makoto took the small staircase to the door in two easy lopes. She unzipped her jacket partway on the first stride and had it dangling from her wrist by the second. She landed on the doormat, twirled the jacket over an arm: her toes touched Ami's. She said, "Geez, it's freezing out here! I'm really sorry. Have you been waiting long?"

There was snow in her hair, small flecks of it. Ami reached up to brush it away before it could melt. Her lips parted. Her mouth worked, crafting syllables of soundless greeting. She shook her head.

Makoto beamed. "Hey," she murmured, "that's good. Come on inside, Ami-chan. I'll make hot chocolate." She stuck out a hand. It was ungloved, Ami saw, its fingers all chapped crimson calluses. Makoto used it to flick open the top button of Ami's coat. Her keys jingled. "Sound like a plan?" she asked.

Ami's voice resurfaced. "Yes, that—" she started, a mumble into the scarf. Makoto's persistent fingers tugged it down too. The taller woman grinned. Flushing despite herself, Ami continued, "That would be nice." She licked her lips. She managed before her courage could crimp and die, "Mako-chan, I came to talk to you about something. It's really important."

Makoto dropped her keys. She cursed. She bent and groped for them along the building's frozen molding. "I thought it might be," she grunted. In an unconscious echo of her princess, she observed, "You usually call."

She rose again, keys clutched. Her knees popped and she cleared her throat, and she finally—after taking a deep breath of her own—sought Ami's eyes. She caught them, held them. Ami let her.

"You came here once earlier too," said the lightning soldier.

The sudden shade of red on Ami's cheeks rivaled polished ruby. "How did you know?" she demanded, horrified and shamed at once. She tacked on, "I didn't knock."

"You left footprints on the mat," her friend said. Her voice dropped, hoarse with—with nerves? The start of a cold? Ami couldn't be sure. "Little ones," Makoto finished.

"How did you know they were mine?" Ami ventured.

"The tread on your boots has a particular patter—uhm." The other girl grasped for the words she wanted. She missed them. "Listen," she urged Ami, "I think—I think I know what this is about." She motioned to their surroundings, the gesture halfway helpless, and summated, "Let's… I mean, if you want. If it's okay. Let's go inside and talk about it. It really _is_ cold. That hot chocolate will taste good."

Colder dread trickled in Ami's chest, pooled in her belly. She forced herself to nod. "That's fine," she lied.

Makoto offered her a small smile. "Fine," she agreed. The sentiment of the word never quite made it to her eyes. She fit her key in the lock, turned it, and nevertheless nudged open the door. She stepped aside. "After you, Ami-chan."

Ami took up the invitation and slipped into the hallway. Makoto followed. They brushed hips as they took off their shoes, and Ami allowed herself a quick glance at Makoto's footwear. The taller girl's boots loomed next to her own—shaded them, dwarfed them.

Hands brushed her shoulders and Ami jerked from them instinctively. She hunched. "Hey, sorry," Makoto apologized, "I was—your jacket, I was just going to—"

"No, it's my fault! I'm not—I'm not used to—"

"Hot chocolate!" Makoto volunteered, tone trebled into an awkward falsetto. "Nearly forgot!" The woman jerked off her own coat and threw it haphazardly over the doorknob. She instructed her guest to, "Make yourself comfortable, Ami-chan—anywhere. I'll, uhm. I'll be back in just a sec."

She disappeared off the hall into the apartment's small kitchen. From within came the sound of pots crashing together: the porcelain patter of plates, the tinkle of silverware too. Ami winced and called, "Is everything all right, Mako-chan?"

"Who put this dish drainer here?" she heard the other soldier mutter angrily. And then, "Yeah, everything's fine! Marshmallows?"

Ami blinked. "Sorry?"

"Do you want marshmallows with your hot chocolate, Ami-chan?"

Ami smiled. Even with her heart crowding up in her throat and her friendship on potential tenterhooks, she couldn't help it, and she moved on quiet feet to the edge of the kitchen. She looked in on Makoto, the other girl's efforts a flurry of elbows and anxiety. Mugs clinked. A warming burner ticked quietly.

"Please," Ami affirmed. She stepped into the kitchen. Her socks slid a little on the tile. In the next second she slipped under the taller soldier's elbow, pulled open a drawer. She rifled shamelessly through it, found a spoon, and delivered it into Makoto's startled clasp. "To stir," she said.

Makoto grinned—honestly this time. "Thanks." She spun the spoon expertly, tapped Ami's nose with it. "You sure you don't wanna go relax? Making hot chocolate's not necessarily a two-person task."

"Can it be this time?" Ami requested. She dropped her hand back into the drawer and found another spoon. She brandished it like a small sword. She professed, "I think I read somewhere that hot chocolate is enhanced if it has more than one apparatus to add to its centrifugal momentum."

"What?"

"It tastes better," Ami translated, "if two people stir."

"You know," Makoto laughed, "I've never heard that before myself, but since it's coming from such a respected authority, you're officially my stirring second. I'll also put you in charge of the milk." She made a serious face. "Mind getting that from the fridge for me?"

Ami saluted her friend with the spoon. She retrieved the milk—she watched Makoto carefully chop up the chocolate that was the soul of their eventual beverage. Together they added both to a pot on the still-warming burner, and as they dipped their spoons into the mixture to blend it, Ami chanced a glance at Makoto and said, "So, Mako-chan…"

The other girl returned her glance—looked away again. "Ami-chan," she allowed. Her spoon scraped the side of the pot.

The water soldier attempted, "You said you thought you knew what this was about."

"Mmhm." Makoto's sienna brows fell together in a consternated knit. "Well," she began, "there's only so much it could be, I guess. You—you came to visit twice today. The first time you didn't even say anything, so it must be something that's really… really hard to talk about at all, right?"

Deductive reasoning—one of Ami's favorite things prior to this conversation. "Right," she admitted.

Their spoons clicked, jousting lances in the half-melted mixture. Makoto chuckled and cautioned her friend, "Don't let it stick to the sides—yeah. Scoop it away gently. Like that!" She demonstrated. "Good." Her mouth twitched. She went on, "You went somewhere to think about it a while. And if you had to think about it after coming _here_, where you weren't able to say anything the first time, it must be that you want to tell me something that could hurt our friendship. And you were trying to think of the best way to—to phrase things."

Her spoon stilled. Her shoulders sagged. She persisted, forest-green gaze fixed upon the contents of the pot on the stove, "Right?"

"Mako-chan, I—"

"I know," Makoto interrupted. She tried on a smile. Brittle, it gave way at the corners. She reached up with her free hand to rub it away. Her fingers were trembling. "I know," she repeated.

"You do?" What felt like an invisible fist compressed Ami's stomach, merciless knuckles grinding into her guts. Luna was right: love wasn't painless. Love was all the hurt in the world congealed into a small, throbbing knot at her center, and that knot was her heart, and it was breaking into shivery little bits and—

"I'm sorry," Makoto whispered. Instinct urged her spoon into motion again. Mechanically, Ami mimicked her. "I—I tried. But I guess I just can't, and—I am _so _sorry, Ami-chan." Her chest hitched. So did her arm. She sent a line of half-melted chocolate streaking over the stovetop.

"No, it's fine," Ami protested, even though it wasn't fine, not at all, and maybe it never would be again, would it? "Mako-chan, please—"

Ami reached: for a napkin somewhat, but mostly for her friend. She dropped her spoon. It left its own edible artwork on the stovetop too.

Makoto shook her head. Her ponytail bobbed as Ami's hands, both of them, curled over her arm. "I know," she said a third time. "You don't want me to come see you anymore. I know, I know."

Ami stared, stunned. Makoto jiggled the pot a little—the chocolate in it bubbled, hissed. The knuckles of the fingers curled about the pot's handle were snowdrift white.

Makoto assured the blue-headed girl miserably, "I tried to do it, I don't know, _carefully_—coming to see you, I mean. I'm just—I guess I'm just _not_ that careful when it matters, or I don't know how to be and I botched it and I'm—I'm _sorry_, I'm not even sure what I was trying to do, but I think just wanted to show you that I—you—_I_—"

She moved with a sudden dancer's grace: flicked off the burner, brought forward two mugs previously retrieved from the cabinets. She poured the results of their shared stirrings into each—threw the emptied pot into the sink.

She concluded, moisture beading in her lashes, "Damn. It's done. But you know something, Ami-chan? I think I'm all out of marshmallows."

Ami considered: the day's advice. The woman in front of her. The apparent lack of marshmallows.

Reaching up, she pulled off her glasses, folded them, and settled them on the countertop. She requested, "Mako-chan, look at me."

Makoto did. Ami looked back: squinted. She was fairly farsighted—the olive oval of the other soldier's face was all fuzz. Still, she was certain she saw in it what had to be a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person. Noting something similar on Ami's end, Makoto sucked in a sharp breath: let it out again, the sound entirely awe.

They glanced away from each another as one, both flushed—both almost smiling, shy and startled.

"Oh," the taller of the pair realized.

"Yes," Ami agreed. She groped for her glasses again, cheeks burning. She whispered as she nudged them home, "That's what I wanted to talk to you about." She added, "_Please _don't stop coming to see me, Mako-chan. In fact, I was wondering if I could… come to see you too, maybe. S-sometimes."

The burner ticked in the trickling quiet between them. Ami stared at her feet, unable to lift her eyes—too afraid, too anxious, too hopeful.

A mug full of their fresh hot chocolate drifted into her vision. She cupped her hands around it: looked up too, because Makoto's fingers were under her chin, pushing insistently. The other soldier grinned at her and promised, "Marshmallows."

"Aa?" Ami asked.

"Marshmallows," Makoto repeated. "The next time you visit, I'll make sure I have marshmallows." She leaned against the countertop, her hip tucked to Ami's, and took up her own mug. She blew foam from the surface: sipped. Sampled. Swallowed. Her arm crept secretively about the smaller soldier, folded her gently near.

"Hm," she decided. She smiled. "You were right, Ami-chan. It does taste better if two people stir."

* * *

**Meanwhile...**

Purple shadows stretched long fingers over the stone steps leading up to Hikawa Shrine. A huffing, determined blonde in flats took them two at a time. Nearby the staircase's summit, a patch of new snow caught her foot and sent her sprawling. The crows in the surrounding cypress and pine chuckled their raspy amusement at her expense.

Moments later, Minako burst into the sacred fire chamber, one cheek bloodied, and howled, "REI-CHAN!" Her chest heaved. Her eyes glimmered eagerly.

The shrine's miko stuck her head from an adjacent broom closet. "Minako-chan?" she asked, surprised. "I thought you weren't coming until tomorrow. I don't have your money yet—"

"I," announced Minako impatiently, "have experienced an _epiphany_. It couldn't wait." She kicked off her flats. Remnant slush spattered over the freshly-swept floor.

Rei frowned. "An epiphany? What kind of epiphany? And what happened to your face?"

"_Your steps_," Minako sighed. "_They _happened to my face. My beautiful, wonderful f—"

"Spare me." Rei pulled the door of the broom closet closed and stepped around the sacred fire. "I've salted the staircase twice today. It's no one's fault but your own if you slipped. You weren't looking, were you?"

Minako evaded loftily, "I never miss anything."

Rolling her eyes, the miko took her friend's ear, pinched it scoldingly, and led her from the prayer chamber toward her bedroom. "That's Minako-speak for no, absolutely not, you _weren't _looking," she muttered in their joined stalk down the covered wraparound porch. Minako yelped in protest at both the ear-pinch and the temperature of the floorboards. Rei, who had walked those floorboards since childhood in all forms of weather, took no notice of the cold.

She jerked Minako into her room, closed the door, and continued, "The steps are dangerous if you aren't paying attention. How many times am I going to have to tell you that? Do you really think I want to go out to sweep them in the morning and find you with your neck twisted at the bottom?" She released Minako—threw up her hands in exasperation. She ordered, "_Sit_."

The backs of Minako's knees brushed Rei's mattress. Obedient, she sat. She observed with a smirk, "So good to know you care, Rei-chan."

"You moron," muttered the priestess affectionately. She disappeared into the adjoining bathroom: emerged again moments later with a bottle of peroxide, a cotton ball, and a bandage. She soaked the second in the contents of the first and leaned in to dab at Minako's torn cheek. The blonde hissed, closed an eye—but stayed still.

"So," Rei prodded as she worked, "what sort of epiphany is worth marking up your apparently beautiful, wonderful face?"

"You were _listening_!" Minako fawned.

"You're too loud to block out," Rei denied.

Providing Rei a generous view of her tongue, Minako raspberried the miko. She related next, "I came to the realization that we're the only ones left."

Her friend blinked. "Hm? What do you mean?"

"I mean we're the only ones," Minako lamented, "who aren't partnered. Out of _everyone_. In the group. Just us." She scowled, thunderclouds building in the blue gale of her gaze. "Usagi's got Mamoru. Haruka's got Michiru. Hotaru's still a kid so she doesn't count yet. Ami-chan finally admitted that she likes Mako-chan, and Mako-chan is _definitely _not going to turn her down, so that leaves…"

"…Setsuna?" Rei queried pointedly.

The blonde blanched. "I'm not counting her either."

"Kind of cruel, don't you think?"

"_No_. I'm not saying she doesn't deserve someone. Ssst!" Minako swatted the cottonball away. "That _hurts_, you jerk!"

"It's better than a broken back." Rei nevertheless tossed the soaked swab into the trashcan beneath her desk. "What are you saying, then?"

"There are just—factors that keep her from being included in this sort of thing," Minako argued. "Like, you know, Hotaru's a kid—Setsuna's the Guardian of Time. _Those _factors."

"That's not fair," Rei observed. She admitted, "But I see your point."

"Because it's an _excellent _point," exulted the blonde. "Are you done?"

"Not quite." Peeling the protective flap from the bandage's adhesive, Rei murmured, "Here. Turn your head a little. Uh-huh—so." She smoothed the white square over Minako's cheek. "We're the two remaining bachelorettes. How is that an epiphany?"

"That wasn't the epiphany. Are you done _now_?"

"_Yes_, you impatient brat." Rei tossed the remnants of the bandage's packaging the way of the cottonball. "What was your epiphany, then?"

Minako looped her arms about Rei's neck. The miko stiffened. Her friend purred, "My epiphany was that," and she fluttered her eyelashes too, for good measure, "we can _fix _being the two remaining bachelorettes."

"I'm not going speed-dating with you again," Rei said flatly. "I had tea spilled in my lap twice. I really liked that skirt, you know. That stain is never coming ou—"

"No, no—see, that's what's _beautiful _about this," Minako disagreed. "I'm not suggesting we go on dates with random strangers. I'm suggesting we go on dates with _each other_."

Rei opened her mouth: realized Minako's statement. Gaped. A sound like a rusty hinge emerged from somewhere deep in her chest.

"Think about it," Minako encouraged the miko. "We have a ton of things in common—I mean, we both _love _shoes and we eat at the same places, and I know you'd never flake out on me and you've got to admit we'd look good together, and—"

"We," Rei stressed, "are both," and she leaned back in the hook of her friend's arms, eyes enormous, "_women_."

"It's in vogue!"

"It's—it's—_what? _I—no. _No_, Minako-chan." Rei curled her fingers about Minako's arms, pried them away.

Minako pouted. "What's the problem? Do you not think I'm pretty?"

"You're _very _pretty, but—"

"But nothing. I'm _beautiful_." Minako mimed flipping her hair over her shoulder—her face, however, held significant sincerity. She continued, "You are too. And your disdain for men could drown a whale, Rei-chan, for God's sake. Your disdain for me, on the other hand, is minor at best and only comes in spurts."

Incredulous and red-cheeked, the soldier of fire protested, "You are _unbelievable_."

"I'm sorry. Was that a reason this wouldn't work?"

"It—it was the _truth_. And… and you couldn't _pay _me enough to even try—"

"Five thousand yen," Minako offered.

"_What_?"

"You owe me," the blonde reminded the priestess, "five thousand yen. I _told _you Ami would cave before Mako-chan. But, that aside"—and Minako imperiously studied her nails—"if you want to, say, _keep _the five thousand yen, come with me to dinner and a movie this Thursday. I'll call it even."

Rei surveyed the other soldier, eyes narrowed. "You're joking," she tried. She paused. She understood, "…you're not, are you?"

"Not even slightly," Minako affirmed.

They stared at each other, startled violet eyes to smug sapphire. Minako smirked. Rei flushed—and looked away first.

"Fine," said the miko. "On one condition."

"Uh-huh?"

"You," Rei insisted, "are buying."

Minako rose, bumped foreheads with her friend, and spun away on a satisfied heel. She agreed, "I'll pick you up at seven, then. Will you wear that black dress you bought last month? If it's not snowing?"

"Why?" asked Rei suspiciously.

"I like it," Minako professed. She blew Rei a kiss and slid the door open. "Think about it," she requested. Stepping outside, she shivered, straightened her shoulders, and set off. She had the courtesy to pull the screen shut behind her.

Rei gazed hard at the door for several minutes. Eventually she rose and rifled through the pens on her desk—applied one to her calendar next. She marked the coming Thursday.

Studying the small red circle, Rei capped the pen and smiled.


End file.
